Great Horned Owl on Coal

Near Jumbo Dome we encountered a fledging Great Horned Owl perched on a coal seam. It posed for a good ten minutes while we took photos.If you spend enough time wandering around the woods you occasionally see something totally unexpected. A Great Horned Owl is a rare sighting. A fledgling even more so. And in this case we had beautiful light, and were specifically in the area trying to take photos of natural coal outcrops.
This photo was taken along Emma Creek, near Usibelli's Jumbo Dome coal prospect. Just downstream of here there are sites that have been considered for either a mine-mouth coal fired powerplant, or a coal to liquids facility. The latter plan would require damming Emma Creek and pumping nearby Margarite Creek into it to form a reservoir that would inundate the site where this photo was taken.